The Pharmacy of the Future?

Pharmaca’s “Integrative” Pharmacies wed traditional Rx with increasingly popular forms of complementary and alternative medicine, or CAM for short. Customers can fill a prescription or just stop by the in-store tea room for a bonus boost. On-staff pharmacists are joined by herbalists, homeopaths, nutritionists, acupuncturists and even naturopaths.

To date, Pharmaca has opened locations in California, Colorado, New Mexico and Washington. Will they successfully bring the neighborhood new age store into the American mainstream? They just might…studies show that CAM ain’t so niche anymore:

“In the U.S. alone, sales of alternative remedies reached approximately $5 billion in 2005, according to a market study by Mintel research. Nearly 62% of American adults have used some sort of alternative medicine, which respondents “felt to overall be safer and have fewer side effects than pharmaceuticals,” according to the study.” – Eastern Medicine Goes West, WSJ, 7/14/07